A Quick Chat with Pornstar Supercar

Words from lead guitarist Gerard Settgast

You guys have come a long way since forming in 2024, with some serious progression along the way. Looking back, what do you think has been the biggest turning point and highlights for Pornstar Supercar so far?

It’s been a very crazy journey so far! We’ve come a long way since 2024. It feels like forever ago, but in reality, it’s only been two years! I am really proud of all of us and what has been achieved so far. Tom, Sam, Kat and Riley (Former Bass) have really put their heart and soul into Pornstar Supercar.

It feels great to have played with some amazing bands and created some great friendships along the way. I think a serious turning point was when we released Overdrive. It felt like that was the moment we really established a sound as a band and made it our own. It put us on a few radars, and from there, the ball started rolling.

Some of the biggest highlights would definitely be playing with Sly Withers, Beddy Rays and Luca Brasi. These are all bands we’ve loved and supported so much over the years, so being able to share a stage with them has been pretty surreal.

Another massive highlight was being played on Triple J’s Home and Hosed with Anika Luna for our previous release, Glue and Tape. That was pretty awesome!

What was the inspiration behind Clem Fandango, and how did the song come together?

I originally wrote the main guitar riff for the song back in 2010, when I was around 15 or 16 years old when I was really starting to learn how to play guitar. I was living in my hometown of Warwick, Queensland, and it was one of the first times I really tried to write something that felt like my own style of music. I was really into AFI, Blink 182 and R.E.M. back then, a whole wide range of music that my Dad would show me when we would watch RAGE on a saturday morning before soccer.

Over the years, I’d presented the song to a few different music projects, but we never ended up using it. Now, it feels surreal to finally hear the song out in the wild, professionally recorded, rather than sitting in my phone’s voice memos.

The song was recreated in the practice room when I presented the band with the blueprint of the original version I had written. From there, we all added our own flavour, which helped strengthen and shape it into the song you hear today. It’s the version I always wanted it to be, and it’s almost taken a decade to finally create it.

Lyrically, the song as a whole is about facing that feeling of defeat. Those moments when you make plans, try your hardest, and somehow everything still collapses around you. When it feels like nothing you do works out or goes to plan, Clem Fandango is about sitting in that feeling and pushing through it. Tom really has this magic way of making raw feelings of frustration into almost poetic statements.

You’ve had the opportunity to record with one of your dream producers. What was that experience like, and what did you take away from working with them?

Honestly, working with Brock Weston (BUGS) has been a dream. We love that guy so much.

There’s something really special about recording with someone you trust 100% and who isn’t afraid to give you their raw, honest opinions and feedback. The dynamic and mutual trust we have is what makes the experience so great. You know that anything he suggests is ultimately going to make the song better.

He also has two studio cats that show us a lot of love whenever we visit, so shoutout to Naboo and Munka. We’re very excited to keep working with him until he gets sick of our jokes, or our consistent requests to scoop the mids and add reverb to the click track.

You’re about to embark on your first-ever headline tour. How does it feel to finally have your own headline shows, and what are you most looking forward to?

It’s crazy, scary and exciting all at the same time. Doing this run is our first real jump into the deep end because you never really know what to expect.

We’re really looking forward to meeting new people, playing the shows and sharing the experience with the bands joining us along the way. Live performance is extremely important to us, as is interacting with our fans and the other bands we get to play alongside.

Regardless of how many people show up to a gig, we want to give them 100% because they’ve made the effort to come out and support local music. That means a lot to us.

I’ve always said, “You go to watch your favourite bands play live.” That’s why we put on a show. We jump around on stage, give everything you’ve got and look silly, make jokes with the crowd, occasionally, put your back out in the process. You want to give the crowd something to feed off, and hopefully leave them with a reason to come back again.

What can we expect from Pornstar Supercar moving forward? Are there any exciting plans, releases or surprises on the horizon?

Moving forward, after this tour, we have a few more shows pencilled in for the rest of the year, so get excited . You can expect a hell of a lot more music.

We’re aiming to have our first extended release out in 2027, so you can definitely keep an eye out for that.

We also want to start working on some larger-scale music video productions with our good friend Aarron Shambrook. There are a lot of ideas floating around at the moment, and we’re really excited to start bringing some of them to life.

There’s plenty more to come from Pornstar Supercar, and we’re only just getting started.